Send mails faster with Auto Compress File for Thunderbird
Improvements have been made in recent time to tackle what I call the attachment issue in emails. Mail servers limit the maximum size of emails, and every email that exceeds that size is bounced back to the sender. Many providers and programs have added cloud hosting solutions to their services that can be used to upload files to so that mail limits are no longer a problem.
Compression may be another option even though it may not be the most comfortable of solutions. I reviewed the Auto Zip extension for Thunderbird back in 2007 which was one of the first that automated the process to make it more comfortable. The extension has not been updated since 2008 and while it may still work, it is fair to say that the author has abandoned it.
Auto Compress File is an alternative that provides you with a similar functionality. While it still requires you to press a button to compress some or all of the attachments, it is more convenient than having to use a third party program like 7-zip or WinZip to do so.
What's great about the extension is that it will display a prompt to you when it recognizes that files can be compressed. You just need to click on yes to do so, everything else is handled by the extension (based on rules that you can configure in detail in the settings).
The settings are very extensive. Here are some important ones that you may want to modify:
- Define filters for compressed files including the skipping of files if the content size is lower than a certain size in Kilobytes or if the benefit of compressing the file is lower than a certain percentage.
- Define if a click on the toolbar button compresses all files that meet the requirements, or if only selected attachments should be compressed on activation.
- Define when the prompt to compress files is displayed in the program (send now, later or in background, save as draft, template or automatically as draft).
- Filters for file names and file extensions.
- Filters for recipients that you want to whitelist or blacklist.
- Select a default compression level.
- Add comments to the zip file.
- Enable character replacement.
The extension can be really useful in a number of situations. This includes reducing the bandwidth required to send emails by reducing their sizes - sometimes significantly - to using the archives later on for easier archiving.
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You said that Outlook isn’t your main email client, so which is your main one?
I think its thunderbird
It is Mozilla Thunderbird.
Awesome! This actually solved my problem… what a stupid bug.
If this is the same bug that I’ve encountered, there may be another fix: (1) hover over open Outlook item in Taskbar, cursor up to hover over Outlook window item, and right-click; (2) this should give you Restore / Move / Size / Minimize / Maximize — choose Move or Size; (3) use your cursor keys, going arbitrarily N/S/E/W, to try to move or size the Outlook window back into view. Basically, the app behaves as though it were open in a 0x0 window, or at a location that’s offscreen, and this will frequently work to resize and/or move the window. Don’t forget to close while resized/moved, so that Outlook remembers the size/position for next time.
THANK YOU Claude!!! I could get the main window to launch but could not get any other message window to show on the desktop. You are my hero!!!!
Solved my issue! 6 years later and this is still problem…
Fantastic. Thank you. Size did the trick.
This solved my Outlook problem, too. Thank you. :)
Thank you so much, this started happening to me today and was causing big problems. You are a life saver, I hope I can help you in some way some day.
You are a god – thank you!
thanks a lot…. work like charm.. :-)
Yah…thanks Claude. I’ve been having the same problem and tried all the suggestions…your solution was the answer. It had resized itself to a 0/0 box. Cheers
Excellent post. This had me baffled even trying to accurately describe the problem. This fixed it for me.
Thank you
Thanks a lot for the article. Don’t know why it happenend, don’t know how it got fixed, but it was really annoying and now it works :-)
Thanks a lot. I was facing this issue from past 3 week. I tried everything but no resolution. The issue was happening intermittently and mainly when I was changing the display of screen ( as i use 2 monitors). The only option i had was to do system restore. But thanks to you.
I’ve been tried to sole this problem for 12hours. Your comment about changing the display of screen helped me a lot!! Thanks!!
Thank you…don’t know why this happened but your instructions helped me fix it. Running Windows 10 and office pro 2007
Great tip! Thanks!
Worked for me, too – thank you!!!
It’s Worked for me, too
thank you very much!
I had a similar issue with Outlook 2013 on Windows 10 and this helped me to fix it. Thank you very much!
Thank you so much. Solved!
Considering you published this in 2012, incredible not been debugged by Microsoft.
Thank you again. M
This problem was faced by only one user logging to TS 2008 r2 using outlook 2010.The issue was resolved.
Thanks.
Great tip. Thank you!!!! If it helps, I had to use the Control Key and the arrow keys at the same time to bring my window back into view. Worked like a charm.
Thank you, this worked !!!!
Man, you are a fucking god. Thanks a lot, what an annoying bug!!
Awesome, this post solved the issue. Many thanks!